A Bold (and Foolish) Statement of Priorities

Eight years ago, many of us were repulsed when Senate minority leader (then; now he’s majority leader) Mitch McConnell declared his number one priority to be ensuring that recently inaugurated president Barack Obama served only one term in office.

Not help the country.

Not pass needed legislation.

Not even “work in a bipartisan manner.”

No, his top goal was pure politics: take control of the federal government away from the other guys – any way you can.

A lot of people were offended by that, even Republicans, and you would have thought politicians would learn a lesson from McConnell’s offensive declaration that politics is more important than country.

You would have thought.

But now Paul Ryan, so widely considered one of the smartest guys in the room, has made the same dumb mistake.

As reported by the Reuters news service (and many others), Ryan went on the CBS morning program last week and offered a variation of McConnell’s nonsense of eight years ago:

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, said he does not want President Donald Trump to work with Democrats on new legislation for revamping the country’s health insurance system, commonly called Obamacare.

In an interview with “CBS This Morning” that will air on Thursday, Ryan said he fears the Republican Party, which failed last week to come together and agree on a healthcare overhaul, is pushing the president to the other side of the aisle so he can make good on campaign promises to redo Obamacare.

“I don’t want that to happen,” Ryan said, referring to Trump’s offer to work with Democrats.

The object of government, at least theoretically, is to serve the needs of the people. The object of the current health care reform effort, theoretically, is to find a better way to structure government’s role in paying for and delivering care than we employ today.

This is the Ryan smirk that one mild-mannered person The Curmudgeon knows says makes her want to smack him in the face.

Other than Paul Ryan, who apparently wants not only a better way but also full credit for coming up with it, does anyone else think it matters whose ideas we ultimately employ if the end result is the better way we all say we want?

For the second time in two weeks, Ryan blew it – blew it big time. In so doing, he as revealed himself to be the very kind of politician he always claimed not to be. It’s sad and disappointing – and disgraceful.

Comments

Catching up on my reading. So, you know one person who wants to smack the smirk off Paul Ryan’s face? Well, now you know two! I’ve never hit anybody; but, I’d give anything to wipe the smug off his face.